And God only knew what the man had said to her.… Should he let her fight it out by herself? What in heaven's name should he do? Whatever happened, this divine interval, like some exquisitely adjusted musical instrument, had been hopelessly jarred out of tune. He almost hoped she would not return. Let it remain a perfect memory.… They could marry in New York and return here, when she was his wife.… If he had not already lost her.… What in God's name was the thing for him to do? He'd go mad if he stayed here, and if he went he might regret it for the rest of his days. Why could not light be vouchsafed him?
Gora.
Fortunately he knew her room for he had carried up her luggage. He ran lightly up the stairs and tapped on her door. A startled sleepy voice answered. He opened the door and put in his head.
"Come downstairs at once, Gora," he said peremptorily. "I must talk to you."
She came down in a moment, clad in a scarlet kimono, her hair hanging in thick braids. With her large round forehead exposed she looked not unlike a gnome, but curiously young.
"What on earth is the matter, Clavey?" she asked as she pushed her chair as close to the fire as possible. "It has something to do with this sudden trip of Mary's, I suppose. Mr. Dinwiddie said she had been called to New York on important business, and the others accepted the explanation as a matter of course; but I'll confess I wondered."
Clavering, still too nervous to sit down, jerked out the whole story, omitting only the old love affair with the man who had exercised so strong an influence on Mary Zattiany's later life.
"You see," he concluded, "there are two things: Austria had taken the place in her affections that women of her age generally concentrate on human beings—it became almost a sacrament. And then—for nearly twenty years she had hated everything in men but their minds. Sex was not only dead but a detestable memory. After that rejuvenescence she had never cast a thought to loving any man again. That mental habit, at least, was fixed. When I met her she was a walking intellect.… I thought I had changed all that … up here I had not a doubt left … but now … I don't know.… Put that cold-blooded mind of yours on it and tell me what to do."
"Let me think a minute, Clavey."
As he resumed his restless march, Gora sent her mind travelling out of the mountains and far to the south, and tried to penetrate the brain of Mary Zattiany. She could not visualize her in the bed of a casual hotel or sitting in the chair of a parlor car, so she skipped the interval and saw her next day in that intimate room of hers upstairs; the room, assuredly, where she would think out her problem.